Still the Enemy Within is a unique insight into one of history’s most dramatic events: the 1984-85 British Miners’ Strike. No experts. No politicians. Thirty years on, this is the raw first-hand experience of those who lived through Britain’s longest strike. Follow the highs and lows of that life-changing year.

As the strike began, a group of miners emerged who were prepared to fight on the front line of every battle.

They were demonised by the media and despised by the government.

Dubbed “Arthur‘s Army,” they were to lead a fightback that would not just rock the government but would change British society forever.

A young group of filmmakers are now taking on the challenge of putting this epic struggle onto the big screen in the form of a new feature documentary.

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Getting up at 6am for shoots, on location in South Yorkshire, the team almost felt like the miners getting ready to picket 30 years earlier.

Hearing from our miners, their stories of being on the front line were candid and visceral and filled with drama, sadness, humour and ultimately inspiration.

Director Owen Gower explains: “Interviewing the miners in our film was a real privilege. Many of them had not spoken before about their experiences in 30 years and it was incredible to see their memories come flooding back.”

In one of the interviews Durham miner and expert storyteller Norman Strike remembers how he had to start carrying his birth certificate around with him because none of the police believed that his surname was Strike.

“Even to this day people ask me: ‘Yeah, but what’s your real name’?” he told us before asking: “Did I ever tell you about my mate called Will Picket?”

Even off camera he swears Will Picket was real.

Thirty years on, these miners are still the enemy within – they continue to fight against the austerity measures being imposed by our current government and against the privatisation of public institutions not even Thatcher would touch. Like the strike, this film has had support from grass-roots activists and large unions such as the NUT, the FBU and the CWU.

Dave Green, national officer of the FBU, explained his union’s reasoning for supporting the film.

“The FBU were proud to support the miners during their long and bitter struggle in 1984-5.

“While this might seem a long time ago and some would say should be consigned to history only to be revisited as a matter of interest, the FBU are absolutely determined that the heroic struggle, the injustices inflicted on many communities across Britain and the political lessons to be learnt must never be forgotten.”

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We want to make sure that the current government is not allowed to rewrite history to glorify Thatcher and again demonise the miners.

We believe that it is important that the voices and experiences of the miners’ are heard.

“Many who come to this subject for the first time will be shocked about what they went through in their fight for British industry but will also see how much it resonates with the fight against austerity in Britain today,” adds Gower.

On 15 November 2014, I went to see the film Pride. Quite some people had come to see it: lesbian couples, straight couples, individuals on their own. Mostly women.

The film is about the British miners’ strike of 1984-1985, especially solidarity with the mining community of Dulais Valley in South Wales by London LGBTQ people. In reality, LGSM, Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, eventually became not just a London organisation, but had branches all over the country. And it supported more than just one mining community. Maybe that was a bit too complex to put into a 120 minute film. The movie is based on a real story, but diverges from it at some more points which we will discuss later.

There was much solidarity with the British miners’ strike. Internationally: many local solidarity committees in many countries. In Britain, there were over 600 solidarity committees. LGSM was especially for LGBTQ people. Another example was Lesbians Against Pit Closures, especially for lesbian women.

According to the film, LGSM started in London, with one punk rock lesbian in her early twenties, and four gay men in their early twenties. And Joe, a 20-year-old cooking school student. Joe is still of an age when having gay sex was illegal, still in the closet because of his homophobic (and striking miners-hating) parents with whom he still lives. A Dulais Valley mining trade unionist, Dai, comes to meet them in London. He confesses he had never met a LGBTQ person before. Nevertheless, he soon gets along well with the Londoners. An organisation like LGSM had to deal with some people in the LGBTQ community who were not activists, and/or, if activist, then only for gay rights in a narrow sense. Likewise, with some people in the mining community who were not activists, and/or, if activist, then only for trade unionism in a narrow sense. LGSM and Dai say in the film that solidarity should be wider and stronger than that. Dai speaks about an image on an old trade union banner: hands of two different people joined in solidarity.

LGSM founder Mark Ashton remarks that police, usually present at the entrances of gay clubs to harass patrons, are not present any more. He understands why: the Thatcher government has ordered them to go to the mines instead to beat up workers. If the Thatcher government would succeed in breaking the strike, then police repression of LGBTQ people would re-start with a vengeance. Therefore, LGSM should exist.

LGSM activists go to Dulais for the first time, staying there for the night. The film shows about ten activists; in 1984 reality, it was 27.

The film has both serious and comic moments. Gay activists help to free miners, unlawfully jailed by police. One of the LGSM activists is originally from Wales, but left it because of his homophobic family. When he meets South Welsh mining families, they tell him they have prejudices against him … not because of his sexuality, but because he is from North Wales rather than from South Wales … seconds later, everybody laughs. His pro-miner activism eventually helps this North Welshman to acceptance by and reconciliation with his mother.

The strike continues for months and more months. The Thatcher government tries to break it with violence and hunger. During one of the LGSM visits to Dulais, Mark Ashton says in a speech that sometimes, during a struggle, defending oneself is not enough. There has to be a counter-offensive. He promises the miners that LGSM will organise something spectacular for the miners in London. But he does not know what yet.

Then, help comes from a very unexpected side: the Rupert Murdoch media empire. Murdoch’s daily paper The Sun published an attack dog article against the ‘evil’ alliance of ‘pits and perverts’. However, this backfired for Rupert Murdoch. LGSM now knew what spectacular thing they had to do in London: organise a big pro-miners event, called the Pits and Perverts concert. It was a big success.

The final scene of the film is after the miners went back to work, after a year of striking, with their heads held high. Gay Pride marchers assemble in a London park. A Right wing policeman mocks the LGBTQ people by saying the miners have lost. A gay organisational bureaucrat tells LGSM that the Gay Pride marches should become more apolitical, and that political groups like LGSM should march at the back end. They don’t want that. And then, busloads full of National Union of Mineworkers people arrive; including a brass band. They, and LGSM, then can march in the front ranks of the London Gay Pride march. Dai’s ideal of the two hands, depicted on the union banner, becomes reality.

The miners brought many banners with them. One of these, visible in the film, is of the Mardy NUM branch. This brought back my memories of 1984 and 1985, when miners’ delegates, an elderly couple, a retired miner and his wife, from Mardy stayed in our hometown, at the request of our local solidarity committee with British miners. I then translated the English of this couple at trade union meetings. Unfortunately, I am afraid that now, thirty years later, they may no longer be alive. Women in their 40s from Mardy arrived as well. They addressed a bingo night (similar to the one in Dulais pictured in the film) and a meeting at the Women’s Center.

When the strike ended, the elderly couple happened to be guests of our solidarity committee again. The TV set switched to British television. There, they saw the Mardy miners marching back to work, heads held high, behind a brass band.

The second criticism of Pride is that it over-emphasizes anti-LGBTQ prejudices among miners at the time the strike started. It seems that most miners were already then happy with solidarity from London or elsewhere, no matter what the sexual orientation of people in solidarity. In the film, after the unprepared speech by Joe in a hall full of miners, there is mostly stone silence. However, in reality the speech got a standing ovation. Still, it is true that before the strike, miners did not turn up at Gay Pride demonstrations with trade union banners; while they did so later. It is also true that the British Labour party used to reject members’ pro-LGBTQ rights proposals; but supported them in 1985, just after the miners’ strike, thanks to the block vote of the National Union of Mineworkers. It looks like the film director exaggerated anti-gay prejudices in mining communities early on, in order to have more of a dramatic change in the course of the film, as the prejudices melted away.

The third criticism of the film is about this witch hunting newspaper article, attacking both the miners and LGBTQ people as a ‘Pits and perverts coalition’ which the Thatcher government should destroy soon:

Now opening in the US – as in the UK, the film is distributed by Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox.

Which might explain why all references to the LGSM and NUM-bashing The Sun – the origin of the term ‘Pits And Perverts’ – have been erased.

The film does mention the attack dog article, but does not show in what paper it was.

The fourth criticism of the film is from a review by Emily Hobson. She writes that LGSM ‘included some people of color, nowhere on screen.’ This is indeed an omission in speaking actor roles; as the film depicts the big Pits and Perverts solidarity concert in London, where Bronski Beat played, it does show some people of colour in the audience.

In spite of all points of criticism, this is a great film which I recommend.

This video has interviews with the film makers of Pride, with its actors and with real life people on whom their roles were based.

The release of the new documentary, Still the Enemy Within, coincides with the 30th anniversary of the 1984-85 miners’ strike. The 112-minute film comprises unseen or rarely available archive footage, interspersed with news reports, dramatic reconstructions and interviews with those involved in the strike. It opens with the March 1984 announcement of the closure of Cortonwood Colliery, the spark that ignited the strike that then spread throughout the British coalfields. It also shows how the Nottingham area National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) refused to call out its members and became the centre of a strike-breaking operation by the Tory government: here.

SOUTH Yorkshire Police faces legal action as exasperated official investigators try to make it release documentary evidence regarding the 1984 “battle of Orgreave,” which saw police run riot attacking striking miners: here.

South Yorkshire Police (SYP) caved in to pressure yesterday to release five boxes of documentary evidence relating to the Orgreave scandal. The Independent Police Complaints Commission threatened legal action this week unless the evidence is released: here.

A catalogue of state interference in the justice system during the 1984-5 miners’ strike in Scotland has led to demands yesterday for an immediate review into criminal convictions against strikers. Katy Clark, MP for North Ayrshire and Arran and left contender for deputy leadership of the Labour Party in Scotland, has written to the Scottish government calling for the review into the convictions of miners in Scotland during the strike: here.

Despite the hardships of being on strike for all of 1984, incredible solidarity from across the labour movement made for the best Christmas the miners ever had, recalls John Dunn: here.

Surging water trapped at least 18 workers Tuesday in a coal mine in Turkey, officials and reports said — an event likely to raise even more concerns about the nation’s poor workplace safety standards.

Initial reports said flooding inside the Has Sekerler mine near the town of Ermenek in Karaman province caused a cave-in, but subsequent reports workers were trapped by the water. Turkey’s emergency management agency, AFAD, said a broken pipe in the mine caused the flooding but did not elaborate.

Gov. Murat Koca said about 20 other workers escaped or were rescued from the mine, some 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of Ankara, close to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast

Sahin Uyar, an official at the privately owned coal mine, told private NTV television that the miners were stuck more than 300 meters (330 yards) underground. …

Uyar said the trapped workers’ chances of survival were slim unless they had managed to reach a safety gallery. …

Paul Robeson was one of the greatest Americans, who was loved the world over and he captured the sympathy of the miners of Wales and lived in Britain during the 1930’s.

Performing concerts at Aberdare and Mountain Ash and exhibitions about his life and connections/attachments to Wales were set both in Cardiff and by The National Library of Wales.

Robeson association with South Wales dates from 1928 whilst performing in the hit musical Show Boat in London’s West End during which he met a group of unemployed miners and to provide support to their cause, he visited South Wales on numerous occasions from 1929 onward.

In particular he performed in 1938 in front of a live audience of over 7000 people to commemorate the 33 Welshmen who had given their lives during the civil war in Spain and told his audience: “I am here not only for me, but for the whole world. I feel it is my duty to be here” and at a reception given in his honour by the South Wales National Union of Miners he told his audience:

“You have shaped my life – I am part of the working class, of all the films I have made the one I will preserve is The Proud Valley.”

“The South Wales miners’ strike of 1984-1985 saw the formation of a curious alliance between a plucky group of young homosexuals from London and miners in Dulais Valley. In Dancing in Dulais, an initial wariness on the part of the young gays, the miners, and the miners’ families gives way, through sometimes delicate interactions, to a loving and purposeful solidarity. The unembellished videography captures well this fascinating-to-witness union of two disparate yet ultimately kindred groups. The “Pits and Perverts” benefit concert features the Bronski Beat.”

PETER FROST remembers one of The Sun’s most despicable headlines and how it was taken up as rallying call for working-class unity

It has taken three decades for the BBC and the British film industry to tell the amazing story of Mark Ashton.

Thirty years is a long time, indeed a good few years longer than Ashton’s tragically short life — a life cut short by Aids at just 26 in 1987.

Mark, a mercurial young Irishman, was a gay rights activist and a founder member — some would say the founding member — of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) during the epic miners’ strike of the 1980s.

I loved the film. It made me laugh and it made me cry, but I’ll leave a full review to others. There is a more important story to be told.

The film is about two tough parallel working-class struggles. First the fight by lesbians and gay men in the ’80s against homophobic prejudice, street violence and against the horrifying threat of HIV-Aids.

The other battle was that of Britain’s miners to stop Margaret Thatcher and her government killing off their industry and their union.

On striking miners he was equally crass. He described mass picketing and street demonstrations as “acts of terrorism” and trade unions as “a politically motivated industrial mafia at work.”

He should have been sacked, but Thatcher knew she needed reactionary police allies like Anderton in her battle to destroy British trade unions, starting with the miners.

In this historical maelstrom Ashton was one of the first to realise the connection between two groups both under attack from bully Thatcher, her savage government and her tame and reactionary police.

Ashton told his gay activist friends: “Mining communities are being bullied like we are, being harassed by the police, just as we are. One community should give solidarity to another. It is really illogical to say: ‘I’m gay and I’m into defending the gay community but I don’t care about anything else’.”

Thatcher, of course, also had the unwavering support of Rupert Murdoch and his awful homophobic and anti-trade union excuse for a newspaper, The Sun.

The paper’s headline-writers certainly linked the two groups in what must be one of the most disgusting headlines ever written. “Pits and perverts” it screamed in huge type on the front page.

The Sun clearly intended to undermine the striking miners’ cause and ridicule or belittle its support from lesbians and gay men. In fact they ended up having exactly the opposite effect.

The so-called perverts appropriated that headline as the title of a massive fundraising event organised by Ashton’s LGSM at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, London.

The concert itself was a huge success — raising £5,650 (the equivalent of more than £20,000 in today’s money) for the striking miners and their families in south Wales.

At the concert David Donovan, from the Dulais NUM, told the 1,500-strong, mostly gay and lesbian audience: “You have worn our badge, ‘Coal not dole,’ and you know what harassment means, as we do. Now we will pin your badge on us — we will support you.

“It won’t change overnight, but now 140,000 miners know that there are other causes and other problems. We know about blacks and gays and nuclear disarmament, and will never be the same.”

The fundraiser was headlined by Bronski Beat, whose lead singer Jimmy Somerville would go on to form The Communards, a group who would record For A Friend, Somerville’s personal tribute to Ashton.

This music video is called The Communards – For A Friend – HQ Video with Lyrics.

“Summer comes and I remember how we’d march/We’d march for love and peace, together arm in arm.”

The new film Pride tells a good story and tells it well, but although one of its main themes is coming out of various closets it is sad that one important closet door remains firmly nailed shut.

Ashton was many things, but he was first and foremost a communist. He never hid that fact.

Sadly the film doesn’t mention what was one of the most important factors that guided and inspired Ashton in all his actions.

I knew, and worked, with Ashton during the miners’ strike when he was general secretary of the Young Communist League (YCL).

It is sad, but perhaps predictable, that the BBC has edited Ashton’s membership of the Communist Party and his leading role in the YCL out of the storyline completely.

I was proud to work with Ashton and other communists raising money and support for the miners.

We helped to picket power stations and fuel dumps, organised fundraisers, demonstrations and street collections.

The savage Thatcher government had sequestered the funds of the NUM which meant that it was pointless for supporters to send donation via the national union.

Instead support groups throughout Britain adopted individual mining communities. Ashton’s London LGSM group twinned with Dulais Valley in south Wales.

They had chosen that particular colliery after meeting some reluctance to accept their support from other miners’ groups.

Ashton and his LGSM comrades raised an amazing £20,000 for the strikers as well as visiting the Welsh pit village in solidarity and to deliver money, food and others supplies.

The alliances which Ashton and his campaign forged between LGBT and trade union groups proved to be an important turning point in the development of LGBT struggles and issues.

Miners’ groups began to support and endorse and participate in various Gay Pride events. Miners Lodge and other trade union banners headed the 1985 Gay Pride rally in London.

That same year, at the 1985 Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, a resolution committing the party to support LGBT equality rights was passed.

The issue had been raised and defeated before. This time unanimous support from the NUM won the vote against fierce opposition from many on the Labour Party national executive.

In 1988 the NUM was among the most outspoken allies of the LGBT community campaign against Section 28 — an attempt to ban any mention of homosexuality in schools.

Ashton was diagnosed with Aids on January 30 1987. Just 12 days later pneumonia took his young life.

His premature death prompted a tremendous response, not just from the gay community but also from the left and the labour movement in general.

Red, pink and rainbow flags and miners’ union banners all fluttered at his impressive Lambeth funeral.

His memory lives on in the Mark Ashton Red Ribbon Fund. His name is still honoured in the ex-mining valleys of south Wales and now the film Pride will introduce at least some of his story to a massive new audience.

Go and see it. It will make you laugh a lot and cry a little, but more important it will inspire you to action — and that is the only legacy communist Mark Ashton would ever have wanted.

Tanzania is actually a rich country – rich in natural resources. Industrial mining companies have been exploiting Tanzania’s gold deposits since the turn of the millennium. But, as in so many of Africa’s resource-rich countries, the profits end up in the hands of a very few.

Human rights abuses and deaths caused by London-listed firms should be tried in our courts, says LIZ MAY

SEVEN in 10 MPs polled want British companies held to account in Britain for harm caused in developing countries, amid growing concern over human rights abuses, including loss of livelihoods, injuries and deaths.

In a poll, almost three-quarters (71 per cent) of politicians surveyed favoured action, including over three in five (62 per cent) Conservatives. The proportion of the public behind the move is even larger, at 78 per cent, including the same ratio of Conservative voters.

The Dods poll was conducted online with 100 MPs between July 3 and 28. The Populus research was carried out via telephone interviews with 1,003 members of the public from August 8-10.

The MPs’ poll, from Dods, and the public survey, by Populus, have been published to launch a major campaign to put pressure on the next government to enable British companies to be held to account and bring justice for overseas victims.

Our fair-trade company, Traidcraft, launched the campaign just over a year after British ministers published their action plan on business and human rights in response to UN guiding principles on the issue.

Traidcraft sources products from around 30 countries worldwide as part of its mission to fight poverty through trade. It also campaigns to ensure people living in poverty can benefit from mainstream trading activities.

The government plan was launched by the then foreign secretary William Hague and Business Secretary Vince Cable last September. Though the British government was the first to publish a national action plan, Traidcraft is dismayed by the lack of action since publication, especially on access to justice.

In a hardhitting report, Traidcraft highlights the building collapse at Rana Plaza, where many low-paid young women claim that they were forced to continue work, despite concerns about cracks in the building.

Masuma, a Rana Plaza survivor, said: “There was so much debris, you could barely see. I closed my eyes and started to crawl my way towards the window.”

In addition, the report — Justice: We Mean Business — outlines how British-listed African Barrick Gold, Tanzania’s largest gold producer, has taken a “heavy-handed” approach to security at the mine, which resulted in several police shootings of local people.

This video from Canada says about itself:

Toronto Tanzania Solidarity

9 June 2011

Approximately 70 people gathered outside the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs for a commemoration held for the seven individuals killed in Tanzania at African Barrick Gold’s North Mara Mine. Peter Munk, who recently donated $35million to the University, is the founder of Barrick Gold.

The Liz May article continues:

Emmanuel Gesabo, the son of 56-year-old Magige Ghati Gesabo, died after police providing security at the mine shot him. Magige said: “He was my eldest son, and my family depended on him so much. He was going to look after me when I got old and now he is gone.”

He is among a group of Tanzanians who are now suing the company in the English courts.

But Traidcraft points out that this option may not be open to similar cases in future.

In order to stop British companies operating with impunity around the world, there must be an option to hold them to account in Britain and for victims to pursue justice in Britain. These polls indicate clear majority support for this option among the MPs and the public surveyed.

In the run-up to the election, we call on all political parties to consider how to enable access to justice for people who have suffered at the hands of British firms. Only then would international trade be truly just.

Traidcraft urges people to join the campaign by requesting postcards to send to party leaders, by telephoning (0191) 491 0855, or by taking action online at www.traidcraft.co.uk/justicecampaign